Archive for April, 2011|Monthly archive page

What makes revolutionary thought unique is its clarity and dignity, and its clear grasp of freedom and justice: simple, clear words that are understood without the need for any help from elite writers or thinkers. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, Mireille Fanon-Mendes France of the Frantz Fanon Foundation testified in the trial of Ameer Makhoul, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and the director of Ittijah, the Union of Arab Community-Based Associations. In January, Makhoul was sentenced to nine years in prison for charges related to espionage and contact with “enemies of the state.” According to Makhoul, during the 22 days he was held in isolation after his arrest, the Israeli authorities used severe interrogation methods that caused him both psychological and physical harm. Read the rest of this entry »

My remarks will be more critical than congratulatory. I will focus more on the challenge we face rather than the progress we have made. My focus will also be limited, to the Humanities and the Social Sciences rather than to the Sciences, to postgraduate education and research rather than to underdgraduate education. Read the rest of this entry »

On April 4th, Haiti’s electoral council announced that, according to preliminary results, Michel Martelly had been selected Haiti’s new president. A kompa singer and long-time proponent of Jean-Claude Duvalier, Martelly worked with the dreaded FRAPH death squads that killed over 5000 people in Haiti after the first coup against President Jean- Bertrand Aristide in 1991. Martelly supporters had announced they would “burn down the country” if he were not selected. Read the rest of this entry »

A MAN died this week. He died with his arms clutching his chest, trying to stop the blood spilling out of a gaping bullet hole.

His crime? In a country in which nearly 50% of the people live in poverty and where nearly 50% of black people are unemployed — most of them without the prospect of ever finding a job — he died because he wanted a better deal for his community. Read the rest of this entry »

Iraq and Afghanistan teach us that humanitarian intervention does not end with the removal of the danger it purports to target.

It only begins with it. Having removed the target, the intervention grows and turns into the real problem. This is why to limit the discussion of the Libyan intervention to its stated rationale – saving civilian lives – is barely scratching the political surface. Read the rest of this entry »

The courage, inventiveness and organisation of the people of North Africa, particularly in Tunisia and Egypt as the new year of 2011 was turning, have provided renewed enthusiasm for ‘people power’ and a popularly driven process of mass mobilisation in which people can not only force the resignation of dictators and seemingly the (partial or full) collapse of authoritarian states, but also crucially demand a greater say in the running of their own lives. Read the rest of this entry »